When I was looking for a domain name, my main goal was short. I wrote a script to check which three-letter .de combinations were still available, and added one more constraint: it should start with a number, so it would sort towards the top of any list.
Among the surviving candidates I stumbled upon 9wd. What sealed it was purely physical — I liked how my fingers moved when typing wd.de. That was the whole decision process. This was back in 2013, and I registered it without a second thought.
A while ago I discovered that 9wd is Algerian slang for “go fuck yourself”. Urban Dictionary has the receipts — with an entry that did not exist when I picked the name. I am not embarrassed about the domain; I just find it a good illustration of how a random string of characters can quietly accumulate meaning while you are not watching.
I am in good company either way. I know of a company that picked a clean, professional domain name, only to find that someone had been running a diaper fetish website on a different top-level domain for years.
Naming things is hard. Not just because good names are rare, but because a name does not exist in isolation. The internet may develop its own definition for your chosen word, one that sits awkwardly next to yours. It may also remember old versions of your product long after you have moved on, preserving a meaning you no longer intend.
Names are not static. They just look that way on the day you register them.